Train Safety Control System for SHINKANSEN—CPU System With Priority on Safety

For 10 years since its opening SHINKANSEN, Japan’s 210 km/hr railway line, has carried 700 million passengers with a perfect safety record. Train operation safety depends on the working of local devices, while overall traffic control is maintained by a centralized system with a computer to aid the dispatchers. The local devices for safety control have an extremely high failsafe function which rejects any mistaken order from the center, when it judges that said order conflicts with the safety. The present paper describes the fundamental idea behind this highly reliable train operation control system.